Coal titan Peabody Energy files for bankruptcy

April 13, 2016 11:30 AM

19
0

In the starkest sign yet of shifting fortunes in the coal industry, St. Louis-based Peabody Energy, the largest and most storied U.S. coal company, announced early Wednesday that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The company cited an “unprecedented industry downturn,” which it attributed to a range of factors including an economic slowdown in China, low coal prices and “overproduction of domestic shale gas.” In the United States, cheap natural gas, driven by the shale-gas boom, has been steadily eating into ...